Lanchester Community Orchard

December 2018

The final month of a very busy year! This is what we have achieved with the hard work of all our orchard members. A big thank you to everyone who have made the following possible…

completion of the dry stone wall seated area
creation of a forest garden around the seated area
planting of native wild flowers
GPS mapping of all the fruit trees completed
development of the orchard website
purchase of an apple storage rack
labelling of trees with new labels begun
building of a willow bower at the end of the nut walk
an interpretation board for the entrance designed and produced

We would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we are looking forward to a very busy 2019.

We are now entering a quieter time for the orchard. There is less need for workdays so we will only be organising monthly ones until the Spring. Please check the ‘What’s on’ page for dates. Winter jobs will include weeding and pruning of trees and fruit bushes.

A final picking and juicing day was held on the 17th November, producing more bottles of fresh, tasty apple juice. We are storing some in the shed on the newly purchased apple rack. The intention is to see how well they store over the coming months.

Although there are still lots of vegetables growing on the allotment plots, there is little to be seen now in the orchard. We did have a good crop of sloe berries and the birds have been enjoying them too!

Basket Weaving Workshop 16 & 17 November 2019

Thanks to the organisational efforts of Sonny Shepherd, members and friends of the Orchard and Margery Flatts allotments were able to take part in a basket weaving workshop led by Joe from Abundant Earth.

Joe was a brilliant teacher, talking us all through the processes of making a traveller basket. Starting with two circles, we were all able to produce, with help from Joe, a beautiful woven basket. Joe made it look easy but it was trickier in practice and you definitely needed to know your left from your right!

As it was a day workshop, we all brought along some lunch to share, so we all ate well too!

Many thanks to Sonny for organising the days, and look forward to the next one!

Winter Work Day 3rd November 2018

We made a great start clearing the weeds from the forest garden area yesterday and unearthed a barrow load of potatoes, our first crop! They looked very edible. We also picked the last of the apples, a bit small but still tasty.

20181103_121721 — Our first crop from the forest garden!

Now that the weeds are being cleared a we have a better view of the different levels has emerged. We should be able to put the paths in now and continue to weed and clear stones. We have a plan for the forest garden planting and will be able to start implement this soon.

We were delighted to welcome a family as new members. They made a great job of picking the remaining apples and pruning the blackberries.

October 2018

October has been a mixed bag, with warm sunny days, and temperatures cold enough to give us frost and ice. The Orchard is starting to take on it’s Autumn colour.Many of the surrounding trees have already lost their leaves.

We had a wonderfully successful apple picking and juicing day. Lots of members turned up to help and we also had eight families visit in the afternoon to juice their own apples.

Maintainance continues including grass cutting, hopefully this will not continue much longer. We are now planning the winter pruning and focusing on the forest garden again. There were still some apples on the trees but they are all picked.

October 6th 2018, Juicing and apple picking day

Many of the orchard members came together for our annual apple picking and juicing day. A tent was set up to sort the apples for eating and to share them between members.

Any apples unfit for eating were juiced. The apples had to be cut up, chopped then pressed. The juice was then bottled for members to take away.

We also took the opportunity to take samples of each apple for a later apple tasting session. The orchard grows a wide variety of apples, many of which are not available to buy in shops. Each one has it’s own distinct flavour and produces a different type of juice.

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Village apple juicing afternoon

During the afternoon, eight village families brought their own apples along to be juiced. All had responded to the advert we had placed in the Village Voice. We soon had a production line going with orchard members staying to help.

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September 2018

The orchard has looked glorious under the September sun. We have continued our work days, cutting grass, picking the last of the berries and finishing the scything.

The windy weather brought a lot of apples down. These were collected and stored ready for juicing.

Our heritage trees are also producing fruit for us to pick, including the quince and medlar trees.

A prickly inhabitant of the orchard

On one of our Saturday work mornings, a member spotted a baby hedgehog slowly making its way between some allotments. Having enjoyed quietly watching the hedgehog for a while we left her to continue on her travels.

At this time of year with more activity in the orchard we are always very careful, when grass cutting and scything, not to harm or disturb any wildlife living in the long grass.

Visit from Jesmond Community Orchard 23rd August 2018

There are community orchards all around the country in lots of different locations. Jesmond community orchard has made good use of an area in Jesmond cemetary. In a space originally used as a work area, they have created an orchard used by many members of the community. It is very helpful as a community orchard to make contact with others to swap ideas, share skills and to get advice.

On a rather blowy and showery day at the end of August, four members of Jesmond community orchard paid us a visit. They commented on the number of trees planted in our orchard and were impressed by the new seating area. They were also able to offer advice regarding apple identification. We share tea and scones sheltering from the rain under umbrellas. At the end of the visit, we were very kindly given three cider apple trees, adding to the diverse range of fruit trees. If you would like to see what’s happening in the Jesmond orchard you can visit their website here

1st September workday

September started warm and sunny, a good day for grass cutting, scything, moving hay and picking fruit. A good turn out of members meant that lots of jobs could be tackled. During our well earned coffee break we tasted some of the windfall apples.